Joyce DiDonato sings Berlioz:  London Philharmonic Orchestra/Edward Gardner,Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, London SE1.

4✩✩✩✩ Review by Clare Colvin.

“Murderous and tragic queens make for a heroic evening.”

It may be a misnomer to imply that London Philharmonic Orchestra’s opening concert in its 2024-25 season under Principal Conductor Edward Gardner was all about Joyce, but in a way it was, judging from overheard speculation about the star mezzo-soprano’s likely choice of frocks for Berlioz’s The Death of Cleopatra.  Before she appeared, swathed in a gold silk toga suitable for the Egyptian Queen, there was another tragic queen of the ancient world conjured up in Samuel Barber’s Medea’s Dance of Vengeance, which was written when the renowned choreographer and dancer Martha Graham approached the American composer with a request to write a ballet based on Euripides’ Medea.

From the startling notes of the clashing cymbals and growling tuba, interrupted by the rat-a-tat of drums, the tension builds up to Medea’s murderous rage at her husband’s infidelity, as she prepares to kill her children.  The lines from Euripides and the shrieking of the violins signal the dreadful act that Martha Graham had so forcefully conveyed in her legendary dance.  Barber’s music, first performed in 1955, was also a reminder of the profound effect on him of his military service in the second world war.

Joyce Di Donato is every inch an actor as well as a superb singer and she follows the undulating theme in Berlioz’s cantata The Death of Cleopatra that signals the suicide death from the bite of the asp.  The text is divided into recitatives alternating with arias of which there is one complete aria, “Ah! Qu’ils sont loins ces jours” looking back to days of glory.  The second part, a Meditation, reflects on the great Pharaohs of the past, whose inheritance Cleopatra has lost, as Egypt becomes subservient to Rome.  Finally Di Donato addressed the “vile reptile” seemingly almost visible on her outstretched arm, until the final notes of the orchestra and the limb sank to immobility. 

After these two rarely performed and intensely dramatic creations, we returned to the instantly recognisable and comfortably expansive Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 (Eroica) .  Written initially in praise of Napoleon Bonaparte, as a fellow Republican, it was re-named Eroica (Heroic) in a fury by the composer when Bonaparte declared himself Emperor.  The 47-minute Symphony of four movements was indeed heroically performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the driving pace of Principal Conductor Edward Gardner.

*Next in the LPO/Gardner/RFH sequence are Gardner conducting Rachmaninoff tomorrow (Saturday) and an evening that includes virtuoso violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja playing Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No 1 next Friday 4 October